A beneficial effect of a short‐term formal training course in epiluminescence microscopy on the diagnostic performance of dermatologists about cutaneous malignant melanoma

Abstract

The short-term formal course in ELM has a beneficial effect on the diagnostic performance of dermatologists about CMM. The improvement of early detection of CMM requires dermatologists enhanced training and higher qualification in the field of dermoscopy.

A short dermoscopy training increases diagnostic performance in both inexperienced and experienced dermatologists

“…This implies that repeated training seems to produce the most sustainable results. Our results, like others, demonstrate that training in dermoscopy need not be time‐consuming to be effective . In our opinion, this initial acquirement of basic knowledge represents the first and indispensable step towards a learning curve in daily practice that needs to be maintained.…”

Level of Confidence in Diagnosis: Clinical Examination Versus Dermoscopy Examination

“…6,7 Short-term dermoscopy training has been shown to improve diagnostic performance as well. 8,9 We propose that physicians' confidence is improved by the use of dermoscopy, compared with confidence in diagnosing skin lesions with the unaided eye. To evaluate this hypothesis, we conducted a study to assess changes in physicians' confidence in diagnosing lesions as benign versus malignant after reviewing clinical and dermoscopic images.…”

The Role of Color and Morphologic Characteristics in Dermoscopic Diagnosis

“…17–19 Our results uniquely indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in the ability of participants to correctly diagnose common cutaneous neoplasms in grayscale vs color dermoscopic images. This implies that participants were able to render a diagnosis based on morphologic characteristics alone (ie, structure and pattern) without any appreciable loss in their diagnostic confidence level when evaluating gray-scale images.…”